


Under the Beech Tree

by Rutherinahobbit



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: F/M, Handfasting, Marriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-21
Updated: 2018-01-21
Packaged: 2019-03-07 16:00:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13438260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rutherinahobbit/pseuds/Rutherinahobbit
Summary: It's midsummer, and Merlin and Freya's handfasting has started.





	Under the Beech Tree

They gathered in the field behind Merlin’s mother’s house, by the beech tree, on midsummer’s day. They were dressed in linen and cotton, no leather, no synthetic fabrics - all natural by request of the bride. This of course had resulted in Arthur having spent a large amount of time and money finding canvas shoes without a rubber sole that he could bear to wear with his new fawn linen suit; the shoes in the end had been lace up brown canvas with a hemp sole, in an oxford style. Arthur was rather proud of himself. The bride was dressed in an ivory fair-trade silk summer dress, with a wreath of white clover and forget-me-nots weaved into her long dark hair. The groom, in a linen suit too, in grey blue, his white shirt collarless and open at the throat. They were both barefoot. 

The bonfire was being built, Lance and Will and Gwaine doing the heavy lifting whilst Morgana bossed them, from a grub free distance, managing to make her green cotton sundress and platform espadrilles look like Coco Chanel herself had risen from the grave to design them. Elyan and Leon were helping Hunith and Freya’s mother Helen bring out the food and place them on the trestle table set against the garden wall. Elena and Percy were attempting to hang paper lanterns in the trees, Elena perched on Percy’s shoulders and wobbling. It was a merry party already and it hadn’t even begun yet. 

Slightly aside from all the bustle and chatter, Gwen and Arthur stood with the bride and groom, and bound their clasped hands together with a soft cloth, embroidered by their mothers. Their hands would stay bound throughout the ceremony. 

“I wish you well.” Gwen said once the final knot was tied. She spoke in the soft slow way people do when speaking ritual words of significance. “Merlin, take care of my dearest friend, love her and cherish her.” She smiled and kissed Merlin on the cheek, smoothing an errant strand of hair from his forehead. She turned to Freya and kissed her too, drawing her close. “Good luck, both of you. You’re both looking bloody gorgeous.”

She grinned and stepped back for Arthur to have his turn.

“I wish you well.” He began, and rested his hand on their knotted ones. “Freya, take care of my dearest friend, love him and cherish him.” He looked solemn as he said it, earnest in his strange characteristic way.

“I promise.” Freya blurted as she looked at him. He grinned at last and hugged her, dropping a kiss on top of her head. 

“I know you will, silly.” He said fondly. But he turned to Merlin and held him very tight. “Good luck old thing.” He said croakily in his ear.

“Don’t need luck, I’ve got Freya... got you and the others.” Merlin smiled “Soppy prat, why’d I ask you to stand up for me again? Thought my mother’d be bad.”

Arthur let him go and swatted him, “Cos you love me, you berk.”

“I do, yeah.” Said Merlin fondly, “Now go and find Gwaine for a cuddle before you bawl and get snot on me.”

As the sun reached its highest point, the congregation gathered beneath the beech tree. Merlin and Freya, their hands bound between them, stood before them as Gaius performed the ceremony. 

There would be a trip to a registry office the next day, just Merlin and Freya, and Gwen and Arthur, and then they’d go to the pub and try and convince Freya to drink something fiercer than orange juice, and inevitably Gwaine and Lance would pitch up at some point and Gwaine would flirt and Lance would be earnest and Freya would let them buy her a measure of gin to put in her orange juice. Gwaine would lament that Merlin hadn’t had a bachelor party with a stripper, and Arthur would point out that Gwaine wouldn’t know what to do with a stripper if there’d been one, and Gwaine would counter that he’d never specified a female stripper, and Merlin would groan and hide in Freya’s hair. 

Later Morgana and Leon would fetch up, and then Percy and Elena, by which point the original party would be well on their way to hammered. Freya would be giggling and moving around the group to sit on people’s laps and say softly spoken but scandalous things in their ears that would make some people hoot with laughter, and Lance fall off his chair. 

And Gwaine and Arthur would inevitably end up in some sort of darts/pool competition with Elena and Percy and Morgana, whilst Freya and Merlin, and Lance and Gwen said soppy drunken things to each other, under the gentle tolerant gaze of Leon-the-designated-driver. And they’d get chips on the way home, and go back to Gwaine and Arthur’s because their flat was the biggest, and crash on floors and sofas and spare beds, and they’d wake up in the morning and Gwen would make French toast... but all that was to come. Because just then, Gaius was asking Merlin and Freya if they promised to love one another, and be faithful to that love, for as long as they lived.

“I do so promise.” Freya said softly. 

Merlin stared at her, as he always stared at her, as if some blessed magic had set her before him in a flurry of rainbows and sunlight. 

“Me too.” He said finally, and everyone laughed. “I promise, I mean, I do.”

“Then consider your hands fasted, have the love and blessing of your friends and family in this congregation. You step forward now as one.” 

Everyone cheered and Freya and Merlin kissed and then everyone cheered again. Arthur didn’t cry, but he did clench his jaw manfully, until Gwaine poked him in the ribs. Percy sniffled, and Elena laughed at him. Gwen and Lance gazed at one another, and kissed. Even Morgana looked a bit soppy round the eyes. 

The cloth that bound their hands was released and they turned to face their friends and family as husband and wife. Midsummer’s day stayed bright for them ‘til well into the evening.


End file.
